Originally Posted by
scandore8472
That's a terrible idea, you'd need to cast it twice for it to heal someone who needs healing. Fundamentally, SS can never fully replace GH as they are completely different kinds of spells. Scaling issues aside, sometimes it's better to heal someone than to shield them.
I don't think your logic applies.
If you had two spells, a shield like SpS and a direct heal like GH, you would have to cast twice to apply both of them too. And you would cast the absorb first as well, since other players could cast the direct heal while you cast the absorb but can't cast the absorb while you cast the heal. So you would cast those two spells in a manner that mirrors this proposed SpS mechanic anyway - unless you rather not have an absorb spell at all?
Also, if you were alone, shielding first is good. If a hit would land it doesn't matter if its the absorb or the healtpool that takes the damage as long as the sum is bigger than the damage.
If no hit lands you can cancel the cast to preserve mana or let it land anyway leaving a absorb behind, depending on how likely the target is to recive additional damage.
You don't have to top everyone up all the time. Druids don't do it either, their hots take time as well. SpS is even better than a hot: although the healthbar will fill up slowly (as in you have to wait until after the absorb expires) the benefit is active as soon as you applie it.
Originally Posted by
scandore8472
Here's a few examples why it can't replace GH
Scenario 1
Spirit Shell falls off, and the tank takes damage before you can cast another SS
You PW:S, then penance the tank, then cast another spirit Shell.
PW:S gets fully absorbed, spirit shell doesn't, resulting in a waste of mana, and SS overhealing.
Well its the tank, boss damage might be erratic and penance is cheap so yes this is a way you could waste mana (in hindsight?).
How would you have done better with an additional direct heal, though?
Cast it instead of penance? You would have spent even more mana for the same effect and you could mirror sequence with the proposed change anyway by just casting SpS twice. I wouldn't matter if you get the absorb up first or the heal if the tank is in danger (unless your intention is to fight your healing comrades and not the boss).
Used no SpS afterwards? Well if you decided you didn't need it under those circumstance, why would you use it in your scenario?
Unless a big hit is incomming, in which case you would stack everything anyway and the wasted mana argument is invalid, you should just have casted SpS instead of penance and precast/cancelled a second SpS afterwards.
Originally Posted by
scandore8472
Scenario 2
Spirit Shell falls off, and the tank takes damage before you can cast another SS
You PW:S, then penance the tank
You wait for PW:S to be absorbed, then cast SS. Mean while the tank takes damage and drops to 75% health between PW:S breaking and SS landing
Penance is on CD and you don't want to waste mana by using FH to top the tank off, so you stack a second SS, the to keep tank safe, and toss up renew until penance comes off CD.
Healer 2 sees the tank needs to be topped off, and heals the tank. This wastes their mana because even though the tank is sitting at reduced health, the 100k shield you just put on them will last until your penance comes off CD.
Part of this is an interface problem with absorbs and hots that needs to be addressed anyway.
Again, why use penance? Because its cheap? Use SpS which should become cheap when train of thought works with it.
Also, if the tank is in danger to drop to 75% with a full PW:S getting used up in the progress and that makes warning bells go up for other healers, why didn't you put up SpS?
What kind of boss is that supposed to be? Maybe the other healer should get to know the effects of your healing a bit to know the tank is not in danger after loosing only 25% because you have absorbs? Where you not a disc priest the tank would have been even lower, would he be frantically casting his fastest emergency heals then? After just one hit?
Or does he have nothing better to do and is trying to snipe heals? And if he does so while even though he should not have mana to spare to do so, then you have other problems and should get your raid to fight the boss again and not the meters.
Originally Posted by
scandore8472
Scenario 3
A raid member takes damage, and the tank is safe
You can't penance, because you NEED to reserve it for the tank.
You cast SS
Healer 2 sees that person needs healing, and heals them.
You've wasted mana because your SS now over heals.
(Why do you need to reserve it for the tank? Because of the previous scenarios?)
Also, speak to your comrades.
An interface showing SpS for other healers would be great.
I don't see how this is a bigger problem than the one hots have.
Originally Posted by
scandore8472
If blizzard is hell bent on making us use SS, then the CD on penance needs to be removed or lowered drastically.
I think more along the line of making sure we don't need to use penance on CD due to mana efficiency issues.
Also an improved interface would be great, for both hots and absorbs.
The interface has always been something which could limit healers a great deal.
An idea I had for health bars for some time is to make the outline of healt bars twice as long, and add absorbs and hots in secondary colours. Like this:
Code:
'=' health points
'-' absorb
'_' hot
[======| ] full health, no absorbs, no hots
[======|---__ ] full health, absorbs, hots
[===---|-- ] health deficit, absorbs, no hots
I placed absorbs and not hots next to health points since those two are the current 'effective health pool'.
Additionally absorbs which expire without heal could fade while SpS absorbs would get a green tinge (or whatever color the health bar has).
I think SpS could be useable if additional casts on the same target converted the previous SpS into direct healing. I don't exspect the problems it would cause to be bigger than those hots have, I think they will be smaller. Of course it would need to get tested.